WEBVTT 00:00:00.070 --> 00:00:05.130 >> I am Corey Burke and I am a professional staff nurse in the transplant ICU 00:00:05.130 --> 00:00:08.040 at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. 00:00:08.040 --> 00:00:13.750 I believe that nursing has come a long way since Florence Nightingale and, you know, 00:00:13.750 --> 00:00:18.430 just changing dressings and washing patients and although we still do that I feel like there's, 00:00:18.430 --> 00:00:20.760 kind of, a misconception about what nurses do. 00:00:20.760 --> 00:00:26.170 It's far more medically specific than that. 00:00:26.170 --> 00:00:30.700 It's not the Johnson and Johnson commercial of the person in the brightly colored scrub top, 00:00:30.700 --> 00:00:32.540 you know, giving water to a patient. 00:00:32.540 --> 00:00:35.250 I do CPR. I titrate lifesaving drips. 00:00:35.250 --> 00:00:37.540 I take care of patients on ventilators. 00:00:37.540 --> 00:00:40.070 I do a lot more than what people think. 00:00:40.070 --> 00:00:43.610 So I work three days a week, 12 hours each. 00:00:43.610 --> 00:00:50.630 We are seven to seven regardless of a.m. or p.m. I do swing back and forth between night shift 00:00:50.630 --> 00:00:53.320 and day shift so sometimes that gets a little hard. 00:00:53.320 --> 00:00:54.650 You do work nights. 00:00:54.650 --> 00:00:55.930 You do work weekends. 00:00:55.930 --> 00:00:57.230 You do work holidays. 00:00:57.230 --> 00:01:01.910 So that it something, kind of, negative for a lot of people that comes with nursing. 00:01:01.910 --> 00:01:11.140 For me I like it but a busy day for me would be usually I only have two, 00:01:11.140 --> 00:01:14.860 one or two patients depending on the acuity of them, how sick they are. 00:01:14.860 --> 00:01:20.190 So a busy day would be one patient, kind of, circling the drain all day. 00:01:20.190 --> 00:01:23.780 You're working a full 12 hours to save their life. 00:01:23.780 --> 00:01:25.470 You don't have time to go to the bathroom. 00:01:25.470 --> 00:01:27.140 You don't have time to eat. 00:01:27.140 --> 00:01:31.180 You're just, you know, throwing lines in and intubating. 00:01:31.180 --> 00:01:33.480 You know, if they arrest you do CPR. 00:01:33.480 --> 00:01:36.820 You-- and just provide general nursing care as well. 00:01:36.820 --> 00:01:39.570 Make sure they're clean, comfortable. 00:01:39.570 --> 00:01:44.810 So I work in the transplant ICU so obviously we take care of everyone 00:01:44.810 --> 00:01:47.030 that has had an abdominal transplant. 00:01:47.030 --> 00:01:48.910 So that's everything but the heart and lungs. 00:01:48.910 --> 00:01:53.190 UPMC does liver, kidney, small bowel, multi-visceral transplants and we used 00:01:53.190 --> 00:01:57.480 to do hand transplants but that has, kind of, ceased for the time being. 00:01:57.480 --> 00:02:02.250 So there's all of those patients but the transplant ICU as a name is, sort of, 00:02:02.250 --> 00:02:07.310 a misnomer because we are the ICU for the entire section of the hospital. 00:02:07.310 --> 00:02:11.240 So that means we get ortho patients, we get, you know, 00:02:11.240 --> 00:02:15.000 any big belly surgery, any big belly bleed. 00:02:16.040 --> 00:02:21.930 Just anybody from 80 years old with cancer to young people that are in liver failure. 00:02:21.930 --> 00:02:24.570 Anybody that needs a transplant. 00:02:24.570 --> 00:02:29.250 I'll be honest some 12 hour shifts are easier than others but the type of person to get 00:02:29.250 --> 00:02:32.450 through a shift, I mean, you just, kind of, have to go and you have 00:02:32.450 --> 00:02:35.020 to be self-motivated when you're a nurse. 00:02:35.020 --> 00:02:38.400 Obviously you have a list of orders that you have to follow but part 00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:41.860 of being a good nurse is being autonomous and, you know, knowing what you have to do 00:02:41.860 --> 00:02:44.940 and knowing what's best for the patient and really being an advocate for the patient.